


Old Gods Lean in Close

by sevendeadlyfun



Category: American Gods (TV)
Genre: Come Marking, F/M, Pagan Gods, historically inaccurate worship practices
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-16
Updated: 2017-07-16
Packaged: 2018-12-02 23:01:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11519307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sevendeadlyfun/pseuds/sevendeadlyfun
Summary: There’s only so much temptation a fertility goddess can be asked to ignore. Shadow is absolutely beyond the limit.Easter is Shadow's favorite holiday. Shadow is Easter's favorite worshipper. What better way to spend her festival day than listening to the prayers of the faithful?





	Old Gods Lean in Close

There’s only so much temptation a fertility goddess can be asked to ignore. Shadow is absolutely beyond the limit.

Damn Wednesday for bringing her a beautiful feast to end her famine! Shadow was his ace – the trick card up his sleeve he’d played before she had a chance to do so much as peek at her hand.

Well, if he was going to lay Shadow before her and invite her to do her will, it would almost be rude to refuse. She wouldn’t want her old friend (and newly minted ally) to think poorly of her. She raps smartly on his door, fingers itching to push it down and take what’s been promised. It’s a flood pulsing in her veins, this need to have him for herself. 

She waits. No matter what Wednesday says, worship can’t be compelled. It can, however, be inspired. Beguiled. Seduced.

The door swings open and she smiles up at him, luxuriating in the shy smile that quirks the corners of his mouth in return. A beautiful man with a strong heart pounding furiously just for her? Irresistible.

“Sweet Shadow,” she says, extending her hand. “Invite me in?”

He takes her hand and draws her in, shutting the door behind her. The flickering candelabras play warm light across the sharp planes of his face, hiding his eyes. He keeps hold of her hand, stroking a calloused finger across her knuckles.

“Those…people,” he says in to the dim stillness, “the ones Wednesday killed in your honor…”

“Sacrificed,” she interrupts. “And they aren’t people. They’re…” She pauses, trying to find the words.

“They’re constructs,” she tells him. “Pieces of that over-coiffed computer code regenerated and sent out to work his mischief. “

“So, why did Wednesay sacrifice them?” Shadow asks, his finger still tracing restless patterns across the ridge of her knuckles. “I mean, if they aren’t people…”

“If they aren’t people, are they a proper sacrifice?” she finishes his thought.

“In the old days, victorious warriors would capture the gods of their enemies – their statuary, their alters – and ritually destroy them as a way of thanking their own gods for bringing them victory. There’s more than one way to feed a god, Shadow love.” 

“I’m starting to see that,” he replies, stepping closer. “You look – different, now.”

“More like my old self,” she tells him, smiling as his free hand comes up to tangle in the riot of curls tumbling around her face. “Before the new gods sanitized my worship, spring was a wild time.”

She covers his hand with her own, winding his fingers tighter and tipping her head back. The hiss of air between his teeth sends a flood of heat rushing to her belly. She bites her lip, shaking her head to test the strength of his grip. 

“Tell me what spring was like?” he whispers into her hair, his lips sending teasing tendrils across her sensitized skin.

Almost, she thinks, like a prayer.

She closes her eyes, drawing the sounds and images from the dimmest corner of her mind. Laughter, the smell of new-baked honey cakes, and the lazy warmth of dawn fill the room, throwing flickering shadows across the walls. 

“They prayed with their whole body,” she tells him, as the laughter dies and the slick slap of flesh against flesh rises. “Their thoughts were only to please me – to ensure a fertile, fruitful year; the fires blazed and the world smelled of dirt and seed, the stink of life rutting its way into existence.”

She slides down to her knees, his hand still wound up in her long hair. She hooks her thumbs in the fabric pulled taut across his hips, tugging lightly.”

“Celebrate the spring with me, Shadow?” she asks, looking up at him from under the veil of her lashes.

“It would be my pleasure, he says, smiling down at her.

She pulls at the sleep pants, sliding them off his lean hips and down his legs. She can smell the promise of a wild spring in the thick, musky scent of his sex. His body quivers under her regard, the blush she loves traveling down the length of his torso and flushing out his beautiful cock.

“Will you give me your body in prayer, sweetness?” She licks her lips, eyes focused on the bead of clear fluid welling up from the slit of his heavy prick.

“Yes,” he moans, thrusting his hips forward.

His cock slides across her mouth and the smear of pre-cum across her lips makes them both moan. She chases the taste, tongue flicking out to lick up the sticky, salty fluid. She takes his cock firmly in hand and laps at the flushed, swollen head, swirling her tongue around the glans.

He isn’t talking anymore, at least not coherently, but he is definitely praying. His cock throbs in time to his pounding heart, a rhythm devoted to her. The solitary drop of clear pre-cum is now a fountain, one she drinks from with relish.

She loves a wild spring.

“Please,” he begs, tugging her head back by her hair. “Please.”

She smiles up at him, closing her eyes against the swell of arousal churning inside her. 

“Pray to me some more, sugar.” 

She leans in, listening to him chant her name as his cock slides into her mouth and down her throat. The hot weight of him on her tongue stirs her blood, almost as much as his sincere devotion. Her cheeks hollow as she sucks, throat massaging his thick shaft.

If she needed to breathe, she thinks, this would be a challenge. Instead, she only feels the heat of her blood as he prays, pumping his cock into her and chasing a furious release. 

He’s almost there and she wants his seed, wants to feel it drench her and coat her body. The power of seed in springtime is immense, the gift of fertility one she cherishes above all others. She slides his cock out of her mouth and begins to pump his cock into her clenched hand.

“Come for me,” she demands, staring up at him. His face, eyes screwed shut, seems almost on the verge of pain. 

“Ostara,” he moans, fucking into her fist. “Please.”

“Yes,” she says, hand moving faster. “Now, Shadow. Now!”

He throws his head back and comes with a roar, creamy white seed spraying across her face. It oozes down her cheeks, dripping into the hollows of her collarbone and inching down her breastbone. He comes for several minutes, the power of spring teasing his release higher and higher.

When he finally shudders his last, gasping her name, she closes her eyes and breathes a deep, shuddering breath.

This was for her and no other. He prayed to her, begged her for release from the long, barren night. No Christ yet conceived could give Shadow what she’s given him – a wild spring night and bright dawn full of spring’s promise. 

“What the fuck?” Shadow asks, staring down at her. “I’m not saying I’m the most experienced guy to ever – “. He pauses, his beautiful face coloring again. “I’m sure, with a goddess, it’s different, but – what the fuck?”

The come marking her skin is drying now, turning tacky over her eyes and hair. She breathes in again, raising a hand to her heart. The fluid, still thick with life and power, flows down her face and into the palm of her hand, gathering in a shimmery mass.

She pushes it into herself, rocking with the force of it.

“That’s the power of Spring,” she tells him, rising from her knees. “I take life. I make life.”

“Thank you,” she says, pressing a soft kiss to his chest. “That was the most beautiful prayer I’ve heard in centuries.”

He wraps a strong arm around her and she stills, letting herself be held in the cradle of his hips. He is beauty and power, the force of Spring still stirring within him. She wants him, wants more, but he is Wednesday’s man. For all that Wednesday has offered him up, she knows the offering was a temporary one.

“I’ve always loved Easter,” he says, hand skating down her back to rest at the swell of her ass. “I just didn’t know how much until now.” 

He pulls her in to him, grinding his rising cock against her. As he takes up his prayers again, she wonders if Wednesday would bring him to her every year. She does truly love spending her festival day with the faithful.

**Author's Note:**

> So, I'm slightly in love with this pairing. I mean, she called him a blusher and he was 100% starry eyed over her. I'm not sure why this had to end in come marking but it did. It just did. For reasons. 
> 
> The title of the story comes from a poem by Mary O'Donnell, ["Fairy Rath"](http://www.poetryinternationalweb.net/pi/site/poem/item/14912/auto/0/FAIRY-RATH), which I find blends in with the premise of American Gods overall (and is a lovely poem besides).


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